Monmouth passport offices honored as top in country

Monmouth County Connection, a satellite office of the Monmouth County Clerk’s office, is being recognized as one of the top passport acceptance offices in the country.
From left: Freeholder John Curley, Monmouth County Clerk Claire French, chief of the U.S. State Department’s Passport Office Brenda Sprague, Freehold Director Lillian Burry and Freeholder Tom Arnone
(Photo:
Provided by Monmouth County
)

NEPTUNE – The Monmouth County passport office that almost wasn’t is now one of the top performing locations in the country and is being heralded as a model for others.

Monmouth County Connections “is an A-plus facility on all accounts,” said Brenda Sprague, chief of the U.S. State Department’s Passport Office.

Sprague visited Monmouth County Connections Wednesday as a part of a cross-country tour of top passport offices. In April, Monmouth County Connection was named a “Leading Acceptance Facility,” one of only eight out of 8,500 passport offices nationwide to get that honor.

Those eight locations are in the midst of a customer service pilot program, which solicits information from passport customers about what they liked about the offices’ services.

That information will be used to improve service at the other offices across the country, Sprague said. About 60 percent of those are at U.S. Postal Service offices.

Monmouth Connection opened in November 2012 at 3544 State Highway 66 in the strip mall next to the Home Depot and across the street from Wal-Mart. But it didn’t happen until after persistence from Monmouth County Clerk Claire French.

French’s Freehold office also process passports, but she believed the county needed another passport office to serve the southeastern region of the county. After an initial rejection, she solicited the help of U.S. Rep Chris Smith, R-NJ, to persuade Sprague to reconsider.

“We thought we had enough passport acceptance offices in the area,” Sprague said. “She was right. We were wrong.”

In just under two years, Monmouth Connection has processed more than 10,000 passport applications, averaging about 500 applications per month.

Those numbers did not hurt the other passport locations in the area, Sprague said.

It’s more likely that the office’s extended hours — it stays open until 8 p.m. two nights per week and is open on Saturday — is drawing more local residents to get passports, specifically for their children, Sprague said.

Obtaining passports for children can be difficult because it requires both parents to be present. When posed with the options of taking time off from work and children out of school, parents typically just don’t get passports for their children, Sprague said.

“There are a lot of different ways to do this. It all depends on what works best for the community,” she said. “This clearly works for this community.”

French said the clerk’s office handpicks the staff for Monmouth County Connection to guarantee top customer service. The goal, she said, is to draw residents back to the office for other services, like such as notarization, issuing veterans identification, community workshops and meetings and appointments with other county offices.

“Residents have to leave here feeling they are welcome to come back,” she said.